Pages Reveal: Stamped Candle Tutorial

The Assignment:
The December challenge for followers at Pages from the Heart is to use a stamped image on a project. Instead of stamping on a card or layout, I immediately thought of a stamped candle gift that my sister and I made a few years back for our coworkers. We stamped "The ______ Family" and filled in the blank with the recipient's last name along with a snowman family image. It was a fun way to make personalized gifts. I created a new design for this challenge.

Stamped Candle 
Featured Collection: Imaginise's Snag 'em Stamps


Supply List for Candle:
Stamps: Ornaments - Imaginisce's Snag 'em Stamps (Snowy Jo Collection),
Merry Christmas - We R Memory Keepers (Peppermint Twist Collection)
Glitter Pen: Gelly Roll
Ink: Delta (dye based ink)
Other: white or cream candle, white tissue paper, wax paper, heat embossing tool



The Tutorial:
1. Choose which stamps you'd like on your candle. You can use designs, sentiments or names. Stamp the images on a piece of tissue paper. I just dug a piece out from my gift wrapping box. You can use any color ink. I used green and red for Christmas. You can use black ink and then color in the images with markers or watercolor color pencils. I colored in my images with a silver glitter pen since it was just a small area. Tissue paper is very delicate so work carefully and stamp and color more than you need so you can choose the best image. The ink tends to bleed on the paper which is very absorbent. 

2. Cut out the images that are to your liking and place them on the candle. I used a tiny bit of adhesive to place the pieces on the candle to make sure the spacing was even. Again, be careful as the tissue can easily rip when you move it around the candle.

3. Now comes the fun or painful part if not done correctly. Cover your images with a piece of wax paper. It is best if you cover the entire candle with wax paper and then hold the paper tightly in place from the opposite end on the excess wax paper. Use your heat embossing tool to heat the stamped images that are covered by the wax paper. You will see the white tissue paper disappear. That is when you know you are done. It only takes a few seconds per heated spot. The wax from the paper melts and covers up your image therefore, embedding it in wax. It gets really hot and can easily burn your fingers so that is why it is important to hold the paper 180 degrees from where you are heating it. Don't hold the paper in place with your fingers close to your image to save paper.

4. When you remove the wax paper, the image is coated in wax and looks and feels like part of the candle and is safe to burn. It is almost like you stamped directly onto the candle. 

5. To make it more personalized, you can use alphabet stamps and spell out the recipient's name. 

6. To decorate the finished candle, I folded some origami puffy stars symbolic of friendship, and placed it in a ring around the candle. I also threaded two stars along with some glass beads on embroidery floss to tie around the packaging. If you are interested in making some stars, you can see a tutorial here.

7. Here is the finished product gift wrapped in ribbons and cellophane. I made a tag copying the shape of one of the ornament stamps to tie everything together. You can see it in person at Pages from the Heart.

This is a relatively easy project, especially if you streamline the process or work with someone at the same time.

Hope you are getting all your Christmas preparations done.
Wishing you a scrappy dappy Christmas,